Valentina Candiani

Valentina started studying classical dance in Venice, Italy when she was very young, then went on to explore other forms of dance such as jazz and contemporary. She further trained as an aerialist, hand balancing and acro-balance contortionist with Ernesto Belley (ex artist and trainer of the Moscow State Circus) at his Acrobatic Club in Venice. With a professional background in arts and design, when she moved to London she started working as a cartoon animator in several projects and continued her career as graphic designer for magazines, then moved on to television graphics and web design. At the same time she developed a growing interest in Yoga and the desire to express her visual creativity in a more artistic way.
She left her job as a designer 12 years ago to dedicate to teaching Yoga and her training, and has been performing worldwide with Edward Clark’s “Tripsichore Yoga Theatre Company” since 2007 (a Physical Theatre including dance, acrobatics and yoga).
During these years of experimenting with physical movement and theatrical material, she started developing innovative techniques to merge different disciplines and create avant-garde choreographies. After meeting some of the best performers in the UK, she decided to found her own company, giving physical theatre a new face. She is the founder and director of Magma Theatre Company

About my training:
I qualified as a Sivananda Yoga teacher, but my practice moved on to the more dynamic form of Ashtanga Yoga, which I studied and practiced with some of the best teachers, including Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. I practiced regularly at the Ashtanga Yoga Shala with Hamish Hendry, completing third series. I also partecipated to various workshops and intensive courses with David Williams, David Swenson and John Scott.
I started exploring other styles of yoga, when I lived in the US, studying with David Life and Sharon Gannon (Jivamukti) in New York. I also lived and studied in Los Angeles, where I practiced extensively Power Yoga and Flow Yoga with teachers as Shiva Rea, Brian Kest, Vinnie Marino, Annie Carpenter, Nancy Corcoran, and Erich Shiffmann, and Ashtanga Yoga with Maty Ezraty and Chuck Miller, as well as Kundalini Yoga with Gurmukh Khalsa.
I collaborated with The Yoga Journal - italian edition - writing a series of articles on Yoga. Click here to view the article about Tripsichore and read the interview with Edward Clark.
Click here for the article in english language (text only).
To integrate my yoga, dance and acrobatic aerial skills, I've also qualified as an AntiGravity Yoga Teacher
Watch an interview about AntiGravity yoga here
I'm also a qualified Aerial Hoop instructor at Intermediate level.

I am a registered Cranio-Sacral Therapist, and also a Nutritional Therapist, graduated at the College of Natural Nutrition, London, and a Patrick Holford's Zest4Life weightloss coach practitioner.